Daniel Wissa

Ballmer rallies partners, targets IBM, Novell

*“Speaking with his usual gusto to a gathering of Microsoft resellers and solutions provider partners, Ballmer took direct aim at IBM in his morning keynote, identifying Big Blue as Microsoft’s Number one competitor and criticising every aspect of IBM’s three-pronged strategy to provide hardware, software and services to customers.

“Does IBM have the best hardware most of the time? Ask yourself that question, I say,” Ballmer said, eliciting laughter from the audience. “Does IBM have the best software? They don’t even have in my personal opinion the second-best software. Do they have the best services? No, they don’t have the best services. IBM’s product line is the weakest it’s ever been. The value [of IBM] is significantly less today than at any time in my 25 years in the business.”*

I think it’s an interesting way of saying Microsoft does better than IBM…